GOOD REST AND MOOD CAN IMPROVE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

It is well known that a decrease in the quality of sleep and sleeping less hours than the recommended amount seems to be counterproductive in the school, college, university or any other studies in general, both in relation to attention and academic achievement (Fontana, Raimondi & Rizzo, 2014; Castro, Caamaño & Julio, 2014). Sleep and rest thus increases attention, concentration and academic achievement. This is something students should take into consideration. Furthermore, influences between academic achievement and mood have also been found, that show the existence influence between both variables, especially from a clinical psychology perspective with respect to depression or depressive mood (Bhatia & Bhatia, 2007). With this, the established objective of the research was to find out how gender, insomnia and mood influences in academic performance in students. To do so, 28 students from Jaime I University in Spain that were taking the course “Data Analysis” participated voluntarily. The participants had to complete a form with a series of questions, and do so every day during 90 consecutive days. The variables insomnia and mood were registered daily by within a scale of 0-10; the variable academic achievement was obtained by recalling the student’s final grade obtained in the course “Data Analysis” that year; the gender of the students was collected by the completion of a demographic variable questionnaire. Once the data had been gathered a regression analysis with variables interaction was made (Rosel, Jara, Herrero, 2014). Results showed significant differences in the interaction of insomnia and mood, as well as within gender. It is concluded that the insomnia-mood interaction influences negatively with academic achievement, so that when insomnia increases and mood levels are moderate, a better academic achievement is obtained.